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Wapiti Indians
The Wapiti Indians are a group of people native to The Heartlands of New Hanover. Upon the signing of a treaty, they were moved to the Wapiti Indian Reservation in Ambarino, although the remnants were forced to flee by the end of 1899, eventually settling in Canada. History Background The Wapiti Indians were once fierce warriors who roamed The Heartlands of New Hanover. Alas, the arrival of the white man brought war to their people, and after many years of war, the Wapiti Indians were greatly weakened. Their chief, Rains Fall, signed a treaty with the government, but it would later be broken, along with another signed afterwards. A third treaty was agreed upon, which moved the Wapiti Indians to a Reservation in Ambarino. Despite this, the tribe continued to face animosity from the US Army. Due to the land underneath the reservation allegedly being rich in oil, the business tycoon Leviticus Cornwall made an agreement with Colonel Favours, who oversaw the tribe, to drive the Indians off the land and thus begin drilling for oil there. Implied to be partly in order to make up for his lacklustre career in the Civil War, Favours agreed and began taking underhand measures to evict the Wapiti Indians once more. Events of Red Dead Redemption 2 Colter Chapter The Wapiti are first seen when the Van der Linde gang are moving out of Colter. Charles assures Arthur and Hosea that if they meant harm, they wouldn’t have showed themselves. Afterwards, Hosea explains the hardship that they have endured over the years. Saint Denis Chapter The tribe are next encountered when Evelyn Miller introduces Arthur to Rains Fall and Eagle Flies. Following the introduction, Eagle Flies offers Arthur money if he steals potentially-incriminating documents from the Cornwall company refinery in the hope that they can be used to prevent the tribe's relocation. Arthur meets Eagle Flies near the refinery a few days later, before infiltrating the building. On his way out, he is attacked by hired guns and saved thanks to an explosion caused by Eagle Flies, who then helps Arthur to fight off the remaining guards and escape the area. Once they get to safety, Arthur gives Eagle Flies the documents, and as agreed, Eagle Flies pays him. Beaver Hollow Chapter Eagle Flies approaches the gang to ask for help shortly after they move to Beaver Hollow. He reports that the soldiers stationed at Fort Wallace have stolen their horses, and asks the outlaws for their assistance in retrieving them from a nearby ship. Dutch, in the hopes of redirecting the authorities' attention away from him, decides to help Eagle Flies; he, Charles and Arthur accompany Paytah and Eagle Flies in the rescue. After knocking out the guards, the men take the horses and flee to the mainland. Dutch then goes to the reservation with Eagle Flies, while Charles asks Arthur if he can talk to the tribe's chief, Rains Fall. : Arthur approaches Rains Fall at the reservation, and after a brief conversation, the two go out riding. During this, Arthur encounters Captain Monroe, who he is given the option of promising to help. Later, the two come across a location considered sacred to the tribe, which has been vandalised and had artefacts stolen from. Devastated at what he had seen and what this will mean for the tribe, Rains Fall asks Arthur to recover the items that were stolen but asks that he doesn’t kill anyone. Subsequently, Arthur retrieves a chanupa and brings it to Rains Fall; if he did this without killing anyone, Rains Fall gifts him with an owl bracelet, after which the two part ways. Arthur will then go to meet Dutch, who along with Paytah, Eagle Flies, and several other natives has hatched a plan to tar and feather a division of soldiers. This plan, however, quickly goes downhill, and Eagle Flies is captured. Arthur will then team up with Charles, and the two will assault Fort Wallace. The two men scale the back wall, before fighting their way to Eagle Flies, and rescuing him from the fort. They face heavy resistance while retreating, but succeed in escaping the fort. Arthur will along with Charles and Rains Fall attend peace talks with Colonel Favours. The peace talks will soon collapse, and Favours says that he is hanging Monroe for treason. Charles and Arthur will then fight their way out of the meeting, in order to save Monroe. Later, a band of Indians led by Eagle Flies will ride into the gangs camp, and try to convince them to help them attack the Cornwall company. This is due to the soldiers attacking the reservation, and killing many. Rains Fall quickly interrupts this, and tries to convince them to stand down, but they refuse and ride off to attack the refinery. After urging from Rains Fall, the gang will ride after the Indians in the hope of saving them. Alas, the gang arrives to find the Indians all but defeated. Many are dead, Eagle Flies is fighting for his life in the center of the refinery, and a small remnant are fighting for their life near the warehouse. The remaining natives will join the gang, and they will assault on two fronts. Dutch leads most of the gang members to attack the warehouse, while Arthur leads the Indians, Charles, and Sadie to rescue Eagle Flies. Arthur saves Eagle Flies, before cutting their way past squads of soldiers and a Gatling gun to meet up with Dutch. They will take the factory, and search it, finding thousands of dollars in bonds. It is when leaving that Arthur is incapacitated by a bursting pipe. Dutch leaves him to die, but Eagles Flies kills the soldiers holding him down. Colonel Favours will then enter, and shoot Eagle Flies, before he is himself shot by Arthur. Arthur brings Eagle Flies back to the reservation with Paytah, where Rains Fall will mourn his son's death. In the aftermath, Arthur's friend, Charles Smith, who is half-Indian himself, decides to stay with the tribe. While Rains Fall mourns for Eagle Flies, Charles orders the rest of the tribe to start packing their belongings immediately, as the army would likely attack them in retribution for the battle. Before leaving, the tribe also buried Eagle Flies near the reservation. Epilogue The surviving Wapiti Indians were forced to depart to Canada, finally abandoning their ancestral homelands in order to avoid government persecution. Perhaps the most tragic part of their struggles on the reservation was that, as revealed in a 1907 newspaper article, the amount of oil beneath their land turned out to be extremely small, causing drilling to be quickly abandoned due to the costs outweighing the profits. This means that the efforts of Cornwall and Favours to drive the Indians off their lands was for nothing. Eight years after his son's death, Rains Fall encounters John Marston in Annesburg. He reveals that he is still mourning his son's death and that his tribe has become nothing more than a "bunch of families". Events of Red Dead Redemption Despite never appearing or being mentioned, the Wapiti Avenue in Blackwater is named after the tribe. The fact that a street was named after the original inhabitants of the land implies that there are still some people who view them in a positive light. It is also important to note that naming streets after Indian names is common practice in American cities, even still today. Trivia * Wapiti, also known as Elk, is one of the largest species of Deer and is endemic to the North American continent. The word "wapiti" (sometimes spelled "waapiti") is of Shawnee origin and literally translates to "white rump." * By 1907, the player can find Eagle Flies' grave west of Donner Falls. * The fictional Wapiti tribe is not based on any single tribe but instead is a composite of Native American groups mostly from the Plains and Rocky Mountain regions who reacted in various ways to encroachments, broken treaties, and other mistreatments at the hands of settlers, soldiers, industrialists, and government officials in the late nineteenth century. * Conversations and newspaper articles in the game speak of the Wapitis’ plight in standing up to outsiders who wish to take their reservation land because of its purported deposits of oil. Many tribes, particularly those whom the U.S. government removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in the nineteenth century, faced such threats by the turn of the twentieth century as demand for natural resources became lucrative in an increasingly industrialized society. * The Wapiti tribe’s efforts to flee to Canada reflect the historical late-nineteenth century attempts to do so by several actual tribes and bands, most famously the Nez Perce as led by Chief Joseph, as well as Lakota groups led by Sitting Bull. Category:Factions in Redemption 2